F4 variants - visual differences

[phildagreek]

Are there massive external differences between the F4E and the F4G? Are we talking a couple of aerials or is it more complicated? I appreciate the cockpit is deifferent, but to look at, is it very different?

[Giorgio N]

Main external difference is the absence of a gun and the use of its fairing for the forward receiver of the APR-38 system. There's another receiver on the top of the tail and then a number of antennas. The reat cockpit is quite different from the E, but all in all IMHO this is not a difficult conversion, as long as the modeller starts from an F-4E with slatted wings.

[Jennings Heilig]

Much more complicated. The chin pod on the G is a totally different structure from the gun pod fairing on the E. The G has many more antennas, and the cockpit (specifically the aft cockpit) is completely different.

[Don McIntyre]

It really is easiest and, IMHO, best to just get an F-4G kit to start with. Unless you really want to (or are good at) scratchbuild details.

[phildagreek]

Cheers!

[iainpeden]

If you are going for 1/72 the most easily available - through e-bay- is the Tamiya F-4g. This was originally molded by Italeri and sold as the F-4F and F-4G with alternate parts and markings. It also includes an appropriate weapons fit for a late 1970's-early 80s a/c

It looks right and goes together very well - the upper slatted wing is a single piece so you are not messing about with seperate actuators (very small and fiddly) and outer leading edge slats.

IMHO it is also better than the Hasegawa F-4G (in 1/72) as that has umpteen fiddly bits and I can never get the front fuselage to marry up to the main fuselage - and anyway it's like rocking horse poo.

The 1/48 Italeri one is not nearly up to the standard of 1/48 Hasegawa one - the latter seems to be gettable on e-bay at about £40 a time - but still looks ok when finished.

[Giorgio N]

Much more complicated. The chin pod on the G is a totally different structure from the gun pod fairing on the E. The G has many more antennas, and the cockpit (specifically the aft cockpit) is completely different.

It may be a different structure, but modifying one into the other is not particularly difficult IMHO.

Agree on the many antennas, and I believe that these will need adding even using a proper F-4G as a starting point, I'm not sure they are all represented in the F-4G kits available.

[Jennings Heilig]

The Italeri 1/48 F-4s date from the early 1980s. I used the gun nose and slat bits to modify a Monogram F-4C into an E back in the day when that was the best way to get to a good looking E (and we had to walk up hill both ways to school, through broken glass, in the snow - AND we had to scratch build cockpit detail if we wanted any - resin hadn't been invented).

[upnorth]

The G sat a bit lower than the E when on the ground.

This was made apparent to me several years ago when I was at an airshow which had a G and an E parked tail to tail in the static park and the pilot pointed it out when I asked about some of the differences between the two versions. It was actually quite distinct between the two aircraft.

I'm not sure exactly how much lower the sit was, matter of a few inches at most, and it might not be worth replicating in scale unless you have another Phantom parked next to it.